Here's one that I don't think I ever saw anyone ever request,
but I really love. When you set the number of backups for a program in
the prefs of current versions of Media 100, it's a global number. Let's
say you've set 99 backups. Do a few autosaves with a couple of programs
open, a few Save Alls, and 99 backups get used up mighty quickly. So when
you go to open a program that you haven't used in a few days or a few
weeks, and look for a backup version, there aren't any: They've all been
overwritten by the backups of newer programs. In Media 100 i, though,
the backups are saved in a separate folder for each program. The backups
for one program won't ever overwrite the backups of another. It's a small
touch, but a thoughtful one.
There are new types of audio crossfades, for a total of three. In this build, they're called Equal Power, Exponential and Linear.
It's now much easier to force redigitization of programs at a new size (from 640 x 480 to 720 x 486, for example), and, better, new audio rates—no more hidden keystroke combination. (That hidden keystroke combination, by the way, turns out to have been something of a gift. The programmers for earlier versions of Media 100 hadn't had time to test the feature fully enough to feel comfortable documenting it, but when enough users asked for the ability to redigitize in this way, they simply revealed that the feature was there—a pretty thoughtful compromise, I think.)
I'm not sure if this last one is a little thing or a big one, but I like it anyway. Media 100 is a cross-platform company with a growing customer base on both Mac and Windows platforms, and I couldn't expect them to come right out and say it as baldly as I wanted to hear it. I was pretty sure, though, so I just went ahead and asked. "That's right," Caren replied with a smile. "Media 100 i is Mac-only for now."
 |
|
Click image for a closer look
|
How
suite it is
The Edit Suite window has an entire suite of changes to it. The most
obvious is that the subsampler window has been detached from the Edit
Suite, which offers a number of advantages. I mentioned in the previous
article that the window can be resized, and it can: to about double the
size of the current one. I have to confess that I never, ever consult
it, though: Even if it weren't too small, I want to see my images as they'll
appear, interlaced and in YUV color. Which is why I was delighted to discover
that I could shut that window altogether and free up a little more screen
real estate.
It also frees up more real estate in the Edit Suite window itself. One of my favorite new features anywhere in Media 100 i is that there are now five pop-up windows tracking timecode instead of three. As before, you can assign anything you want to them—program length, gap length, audio or video time codes, etc.—but I almost never found that three was enough. Five, on the other hand, feels just right. With the subsampler eliminated, though, the Edit Suite window seems smaller to me, even with the additional popups.
"Special sauce"
That's the phrase Caren Anhder uses to describe the integration of
BorisFX with Media 100 i, which I think is a playful understatement of
what the combination of these two offers. (As I speak about BorisFX in
this context, I also mean Boris RED, too. It has the same sort of integration,
and adds many additional
features, including support for After Effects plug-ins.) Much of the
new power comes from the way they're tied together.
Since BorisFX offers opportunities for limitless creativity with DVEs, it's still available in the DVE section of the Transition suite. The difficulty for some people was wrapping their heads around how to use a transition to create a single layer filtered effect, or, worse, a multi-layered, multi-filter effect. I personally find the process no more difficult than pre-composing in After Effects, but goodness knows it's no more immediately obvious than pre-composing either.
Media 100 i couldn't make it any easier. Under the Tools menu is a command for New Composition, which opens up the Boris interface. The default is still for video tracks 1 and 2 from the Media 100 timeline to default to tracks 1 and 2 in Boris. Users still have the option of reassigning that media to other tracks, or other media to those tracks, using the familiar pop-up box, but the combination of BorisFX and Media 100 i offers something new: the ability for BorisFX to read Media 100 i clips straight from the bin.